Traitor's Keep
by Modrona
Summary: Taken from the DLC of the same name. I do not own Fable or these characters. A fic charting the year after the Crawler's attack on Albion, as the danger to the Queen turns personal, and she has no one to rely on. With betrayal at every turn, trapped and stripped of everything she has, now the saviour needs saving. Graphic royalcest, don't like, don't read.
1. Day 94

**A?N: This will begin in keeping with the DLC plot, and then veer off course rather sharply. There is more Logan/Queen to come, more frequently than in _The Missing Days._ This fic will also chart a year, beginning nearly 3 months after the Crawler's attack.**

* * *

 **Traitor's Keep**

 **+94**

The explosions have died down a little, the prisoners either dead or back in their cells. Most of them dead, she thinks, looking at the blood on her sword and on her gauntlets. Messy, but at least it proved that not every man here was here for merely political reasons. Logan wasn't so corrupt at that.

The dog runs ahead, an alarmed bark floating back to her. She increases her pace, and comes to Milton's office, though she sees no sign of him in here. A groan of pain draws her from behind the desk, where the Commander lies, waking from unconsciousness. She goes to him, pulling him to his feet.

"What happened?"

Milton's mouth hangs open, lolling tongue stark in his white face. "It was Turner. He's been here all along, he- he never left the island!"

"Where's Hobson?" the Queen demands.

"He took him. Turner's been playing with us, playing with you. This is what he wanted all along, to lure you into a trap," Milton said, shaking his head. Seeing the Queen about to ask, he continues, "He's been using hidden passages behind the walls. He's somewhere in the prison." He turns away from her, heading to the tunnel extending through the walls, the set of his stride determined. "I don't care what happens to Hobson," he states bluntly, "but we have to find Turner. He left through here."

She follows quickly. She is about ready to face this man. After seeing Faraday, and poor Witchcraft Mary … she understands why someone might go mad here. But Turner, she thinks, could probably be reasoned with, once she shows that she is not her brother.

They descend into the bowels of the Keep. Milton seems to feel the need to state the obvious. "I know it's a trap."

Behind him, Elsbeth rolls her eyes. _Obviously._

"But I'm not sure Turner realises who he's dealing with. He hasn't seen you fight, like I have." Whether he's seen her fight or not, the general is clearly no fool. And only a fool would not take precautions. Seeing the look on her face, Milton nods. "We should be careful. He must have something prepared for us."

More dingy tunnels, though this time the gloom has a tinge of mould about it too, the dilapidation a more sinister atmosphere. The air smells wrong.

"This is the Pit. If he's hiding with all these lunatics …"

He is clearly doing more than hiding, though. Because when they enter the Pit, the raving screechings get louder. And then the metal cell doors slide open with a scream of rust.

"He's set them free! Bastard's set them free!"

Insane prisoners pour into the narrow corridor, cackling as they advance. All of them are somehow armed with makeshift, though deadly, weapons. Clenching her jaw, the Queen pulls out her sword with one hand, and conjures a fireball in the other. There will be no reasoning with these men. Both she and Milton wade into battle. She hurls Will and metal at them in equal measure, spectral blades darting to stab at them when she is surrounded, and physical blade when she is not. As always, she is swept up in the moment, too focused on her next opponent to worry about anything else. When stillness and silence fall, however, she and her companion are both alive. But only one of them is still standing.

Milton is propped up on his elbows, resting on the floor with his face creased in pain. "At least they're out of their misery now," he grits out.

She bends over him, though she cannot see a wound from this angle. "You're hurt."

"I'll be alright," he groans. "I'm no Hero, though."

"Stay here. I can deal with Turner alone," she says firmly.

He looks up and flashes a weak smile. "I'm sure you can. You have powers the rest of us can only dream of." He forces himself to his feet, still clutching his side. "There might be more coming. Go. I'll hold them off while I can."

She nods to him and carries on alone. He is a good man, and he does not deserve to die down here like this. But the greater threat has to come first. She runs through more endless corridors, till finally she comes to the torture room. There is her servant, strapped to one of the chairs. He is gagged as well, something she can't blame Turner for. As she climbs up onto the metal platform, reaching for his restraints, Hobson starts screaming at her from behind his gag.

"It's alright, Hobson," she soothes.

As soon as he has one hand free, Hobson tears away the gap. His voice is gravelly from thirst, but urgent. "There _was_ no third prisoner!" he cries. "It was all … _him_!"

She looks, and there is Milton, uninjured, unhurt, with his hand on the apparatus of the machine. He raises a gloved finger to his lips. "Ssshh!"

Too late, Elsbeth notices the wire connecting where she's standing to the switch Milton is grasping.

Milton merely looks triumphant. "It's time for your treatment, Your Majesty!"

He hits the switch. Even the Queen's heroic reflexes are not fast enough to save her; she feels an arcing pain, smells singed hair, and blacks out.

* * *

When she comes too, everything aches. Her vision is very blurry too. Milton's voice comes through clearly, however. Bastard. "You're awake, Your Majesty. Good. I was afraid I might have set too high a charge, but then … you have powers the rest of us can only dream of," he finishes mockingly.

She blinks slowly. Gods, her _head_ …

"Hobson was mistaken. There _was_ a third prisoner. General Turner – the finest soldier I ever served under, the finest man I ever knew – died six months ago." He turns away, paces a little. "I couldn't save his life, but I wasn't going to let everything he believed in die with him. You see, it's time for a true revolution, and how does one bring down a Queen? How does one bring down a Hero?" He points accusingly at her, as though she can help what she is. "By becoming one," he states boldly.

He has clearly lost his mind. If she weren't tied up, and recently betrayed, she might feel pity. Except then she remembers all the experiments of Witchcraft Mary and Professor Faraday … they were so worried their innovation would be abused – now it's going to be. Milton merely smiles at the glare she gives him, heaves a wistful little sigh like it cannot be helped and says, "Forgive me, Your Majesty."

The pain is beyond anything she has ever imagined. Electric fire pierces every nerve cell, lancing down through her brain to her spine, limbs, everything spasming and the agony nearly making her black out. She is barely aware of the scream torn from her lips, and not at all aware of the echo is makes, reverberating around the chamber. She's only aware when it stops. When there is one, quiet, drop.

Milton lifts the bottle of Heroic essence in euphoria, his eyes wide and mad. "It worked! To the end of Kings and Queens!" He toasts her, and then knocks the whole thing back.

Elsbeth watches in complete and total horror, transfixed as this aging man becomes … her. His features melt and distort, his hair lengthening, his body changing to accommodate the curves of her hips and breasts, and even her clothes appear there. After a blinding flash of white light, the Milton-thing stands. He speaks with her voice.

"All hail the Queen of Albion!" He lights a fireball in his hand, staring at it as if entranced. "Do you see now who the real enemy is? I am you, and only one of us can live."

The dog, previously cowering against the wall, senses the threat to his mistress. His ears flatten back, his hackles raise, and he growls angrily. Milton's response is unequivocal. The fireball is hurled directly at her beloved pet. With a yelp that makes every nerve in Elsbeth's body flinch, he is thrown against the wall, and lies still. Her heart stops. No, no, no … No. The dog gets to his feet and scarpers in terror. She cannot blame him, but as Milton readies another spell to go after him, something inside her snaps.

"Leave. My dog. Alone," she commands.

Where the strength comes from, she has no idea. But someone she loves is in danger. Perhaps that's enough. She rips the chair that holds her into absolute pieces, on her feet in a moment.

Before she can get two steps, Milton has reacted, his sword out and hacking at her. She barely manages to block. Considering he is dealing with strength and agility he has never before possessed, he takes to it like a fish to water. "Do you know how many people I've seen die for someone else's cause? How much blood I've seen spilled in the name of the Crown? And how many have wasted away in prisons like this one just for speaking their minds?" he rages at her.

She barely takes in everything he says, too busy just trying to stay alive. For every blow she lands, Milton seems to land two. She has bleeding cuts on her arms and legs, and a ringing head.

"You called yourself a revolutionary – what changed? We swapped one ruler for another! What gives you the right to dictate our lives? Your Hero blood? Do you think it makes you better than us?"

Her sword flies from her hand, so she dives after it, but Milton lands a kick to her abdomen which winds her badly, and then it's all she can do to roll across the floor fast enough to avoid it being followed by a stab. The sword goes into the floor, and Milton yanks it out with an insane grin.

"Well, now it's my blood too. Witchcraft Mary may have been insane, but her work was inspired. I studied it for years before setting her free. But she didn't know how to use that knowledge! Why become a filthy beast when you can become a god?"

It has never happened before. She has never met an opponent she could not defeat. But then she has never met herself. And now she is defeated. Exhausted, out of Will, ammunition and options. With a savage kick to her chest, Milton forces her against the wall and then backhands her. Spitting blood, she glares at him. "You'll … You'll never fool … anyone-"

"Oh, but I don't need to. It's not as if there'll be another Hero to turn to now. I'm going to finish what you started, Your _Majesty_. There will be a true revolution. Without you to get in the way. Goodbye, Hero."

He raises the sword one last time. His aim will be true, and in a second her heart will be skewered like a roast suckling pig. Minus the apple. Except … she notices something through the blood haze. His hand. Is no longer her hand. It's a man's hand again, large and hairy and suddenly trembling just a little. She is in no position to take advantage of that – but Milton sees it too. "No! No, it's impossible!"

Elsbeth draws in another shallow breath. She thinks a couple of her ribs are broken. Her chest is certainly on fire, and she can't hold back a cry of pain when Milton hauls her forwards, shaking her. "How has this happened? Tell me!"

She just about musters the strength to spit bloody phlegm into her own face. "Fuck you." Ben would be so proud of her.

Milton drops her again. "No matter, I- I can still do this!" He looks again at the machine, at the one electric chair still standing. "Well, Your Majesty … it looks like your luck's in. I'll have to keep you alive after all. But don't worry. There'll be no witnesses to the fact."

In cold blood, he raises her rifle and shoots Hobson in the head. The toady's brains splatter all over the back wall. Then Milton slams the butt of the gun into her temple, and all is darkness.


	2. Day 172

**\+ 178**

Elsbeth doesn't know how long she's been in this cell. Long enough for the screams and cries of the lunatics around her to go unnoticed. They don't stop her from sleeping anymore. And she doesn't turn her nose up at the food, either—what would be the point? She tried not eating once, but then Milton ordered that she be force-fed. Having a tube shoved down her nose into her gullet is not an experience she would willingly repeat.


	3. Day 207

**+207**

She hasn't given up, but neither is she, precisely, fighting back. It's difficult. She has no weapons, and while she is a magic-user, her gaoler has thought of that too; she is given enough food to keep her alive, and alive only. Magic takes enormous reserves of strength to use, and while she has managed to escape her cell once or twice, she never makes it to the keep doors.

She has been angrier and more helpless once in her life—but only once. And this time, there is no grand lesson going on. No greater scheme. And no Walter offering a way out. Has anyone even noticed? Milton returns every so often. Without noise, without access to daylight or moonlight, the Queen cannot tell how frequent his visits are. She guesses about two months or so in between each one. So far there have been three. Each time, he arrives in _her_ crown, in _her_ clothes of state and surrounded by _her_ guards. In _her_ skin. The Queen, were she a weaker woman, might have let it erode her identity. When dismissed as a mad, dangerous traitor, she might have started to believe it. But not her. She has almost started to go the opposite way; it's her birth name that's hazy now, everything that's happened before she left to begin her revolution. She has been a princess, is still a Queen. It's why she yells at the guards not to believe Milton, to arrest the imposter, even though time and again the Elite men who have sworn to protect her simply let Milton drag her into the torture chamber. She is never before witnesses, when Milton initiates the same process he did the first time. He takes more each time, needing to prolong the amount of time between visits. She thought the first one hurt; at least that was over swiftly. Mercifully swiftly, she now knows. Milton's 'treatments' are never over swiftly now.

Her sole aim is now to kill him. Someone will notice, eventually. Jasper will. Or Ben. Or Wal- No, not Walter. But he _would_ have known. But as the weeks pass, the number of people who should know, the list of their names grows shorter and shorter. Clearly they _don't_ know. Clearly she alone has to fight her way out of here, and regain her kingdom. She has no sword, no pistol. And with little food, that much Will takes a long time to gather.


	4. Day 208

**+208**

Seven months ago, a lone ship left Albion. It had but a small crew, each one of them prepared to do as they must to keep their vessel afloat. Including the former king. If losing the responsibility of the crown had started Logan eating again, sleeping again, then this voyage has toughened his hands, strengthened his muscles. He is more muscular now than he ever remembers being in the past. And the simple life… Well, it might have been enough. The wind in his face, salt-smell of the sea, endless possibilities over every horizon. He could see how the simple life would appeal—to a simpler man. It is not enough for Logan.

He knows, because he still dreams of Albion, of Bowerstone Castle and the Queen who waits for him there. If Elsbeth still waits for him. In daylight hours, with his reason and sense speaking to him, he wishes she has found someone else. That perhaps she is even betrothed and they can revert to being what they should be. But at night he can listen to the truth of his heart, lulled by the waves—what they _should_ be is not what they have been born as. That is merely unfortunate coincidence. Logan has known he loves his sister … at what point he fell _in_ love with her, it is impossible to determine. He only knows that he has. And the memory of their night together ghosts nightly over his skin. The way she responded to him, the way she fit was extraordinary. And he craves it.

But cravings sometimes need to be resisted. Logan has no idea if he will or not. He suspects he will not know until he knows Beth's feelings on the subject. And to do that, he needs to see her. It has been seven months since she gave him eight.

"Turn about," he tells the first mate. "We're returning to Bowerstone."


	5. Day 209

**+209**

Logan will know.

Logan will come.


	6. Day 232

**+232**

Entering Bowerstone Harbour, it is obvious something is wrong. First, there's the mooring fee. Which is at least double what it was under his reign. Then there's the redcoats standing guard at every street corner. No one seems happy about this – not the soldiers, and certainly not the citizens of the city. They, a different people under Elsbeth, have once again lost any spark in their eyes. They're back to trudging, heads down, clothing dirty, their voices depressed monotones. The children, at least, are not working. They seem to have organised themselves in gangs of urchins now, some hanging by the water's edge, dipping makeshift fishing rods into the filthy sludge, spitting and picking noses and swearing at anyone who happens to glance at them.

One of them is pushed by another, and lands sprawling in Logan's path. He is a lad of about seven, Logan would guess, though he might be older if his growth's been stunted through lack of good nutrition. He has two grazed knees and a cut on one of his palms, thrown out to save himself. When Logan's shadow falls across him, he glances up with watering blue eyes and flinches, readying himself for a blow.

Logan frowns. He's hoped he'd been gone long enough so that children might not be afraid of him anymore. Apparently not. He reaches down anyway to grasp the boy's elbow and haul him to his feet.

"Gerroff me!" the boy spits, as soon as he is on his feet. And then actually spits, at Logan's feet, just to make his point clear.

Logan lets go of him. "You're welcome."

The boy's peers jeer at him, so he gives them a quick, rude gesture that Logan certainly had never come across at his age. Then he glances quickly, shyly, up at Logan again. "Yeah, well … ta."

He darts away and is lost to the crowd, and too late Logan notices that his purse, previously hanging at his belt, is gone completely. Clever little shit. There wasn't a huge amount of gold in there, and he's hardly worried about starving, but the fact that he wasn't more vigilant is annoying. With a shake of his head and a rueful chuckle, Logan continues through Industrial. His destination is the castle, naturally, and his heart thuds harder in his chest with each step he takes. His mind works furiously at producing obstacles and stumbling blocks.

She's not even in the castle.

If she is, she's too busy to see him.

She regrets what they had.

She's engaged.

She's fallen in love with another man.

She's fallen in love with Ben Finn.

… that last possibility is perhaps the one he dislikes most. But still, it's one that deserves contemplating. The match would go down well with the people. The brave, handsome redcoat, a romance that began during their fated revolution, true love for the Hero Queen. Never mind _he_ finds the man insufferably impertinent with no proper respect for Elsbeth's position and the deference it requires. And, frankly, Finn has the air of a man who'd take his pleasure and assume his partner had found hers. Any man deemed worthy enough to be in Elsbeth's bed should spend every moment there soaking bliss into her bones, until she is a twitching, breathless, glowing mess, until-

Here, memory intrudes: how she looked in the middle of her climax, mouth open, the column of her neck exposed, her chest still because she's forgotten to breathe, every Will marking lit up and brilliantly stark against her pale skin. In the aftermath, her luminous eyes fixed on him as if she'd never believed she could be made to feel that. He wants her to feel that again, every day and every night. He wants to _see_ her feeling that. If she'll let him, he vows right now to spend the rest of his life doing just that. Every waking moment making her happy.

It is a shock, therefore, when he comes to the castle gates and finds them guarded by that same irritating soldier. He nearly walks right past him, until Ben calls out. "Well, look what the cat dragged in!" The sarcastic drawl is there, but the tone is entirely bitter.

Logan stops and stares. "Major Finn?"

Ben scowls. "It's 'Captain', actually.'

"I thought the queen promoted you after-"

"Yeah, and a couple of months back, she _de_ moted me again."

Logan is genuinely mystified. "Why?"

Ben lets out an ugly, grunting laugh. "I won't spoil the surprise, mate. In you go." He gives Logan a wink that chills him to the bone.

Nevertheless, he makes his way into the castle. He is met by a servant he does not recognise, not Jasper or even Hobson, though this man has the same sort of grovelling, snivelling servility Hobson does. "I wish to see the queen," Logan states.

The steward's upper lip curls, which makes sense, thinking about it. After all, Logan has spent months at sea, and while he is clean (he had the crew boil several gallons of sea water for a bath, last night), his trousers and shirt are not the sweetest items of wear. "Her Majesty is far too busy to entertain any peasant who comes knocking-"

"Her Majesty has time for anyone who needs her help and I am not _anyone_. I am Logan. Now, go and tell the queen her brother is here," he commands, and the tone ensures that recognition dawns in the man's eyes.

He hastens to bow. "Of- Of course, my lord, at once. Please, this way, please."

He leads him not to the throne room, which is locked and apparently barred, but to the royal apartments. Through the map room and past the treasury, stopping outside the queen's dressing room. Inside, he can hear Elsbeth's voice, and though he can't hear the words, her tone is uncharacteristically harsh and angry. The door bangs open from the inside, and a woman runs out. She is sobbing, her face buried in her hands. The steward flinches before he leads Logan inside the room. Elsbeth faces away from them, admiring her form in a mirror. If he didn't know better, Logan would have looked at the scene and thought his sister vain.

Then, in the glass, her eyes find his, and everything goes wrong.


	7. Day 244

**+244**

Meditation is her only salvation. It has kept her alive and mostly sane for the past months, down here in the dark. She sits, and she does not move, conserving energy and waiting. In this way, she has become finely attuned to the breathing of the building around her. She can hear the crash of the sea at the cliff base, the cannibalistic rantings of the man in the cell beside hers, the quiet sobbing of Mary Godwin, high above. Sometimes she even thinks she can hear Theresa, whispering in her ear and telling her that all will be well. She need only have patience.

It's because of her meditation that she can tell instantly when it all changes.

The lunatics down here in the Pit feel it too. The mad always feel these things first. And they go silent. The first time she can ever remember it being quiet here. Something is about to happen.

* * *

When he hears the first bark, it makes Logan's heart leap into his mouth. That mutt, that stupid, loyal-to-a-fault mutt … She never goes anywhere without him, never has done, not since the first day of giving her that puppy …

But when the dog appears, it is not with Elsbeth. In fact, the dog's fur is matted and dirty, his claws (too long) clip on the stone path as he races towards the former King – it's clear no one has cared for the canine in some time. At the last second, the dog remembers that Logan has not always been his ally, and skids to a halt. His tail is now tucked between his legs, he is bent low to the ground, and his lips peel back from black gums and yellow teeth.

Logan sheaths his bloodied blade, since there are no guards in the immediate vicinity, and crouches also. He stretches his hand out to the dog, and doesn't move. Inch by inch, the mutt comes to him. Excruciatingly slowly it seems to Logan, but the dog could be the one chance he has of finding Elsbeth, so he has no choice but to be patient. Finally the dog is within sniffing distance of him, so he sniffs, recognises that it is Logan, and then is joyfully licking his face and hands, barking and jumping up, tail whisking from side to side in indescribable joy. He's never really liked the canine, but right now, they are the two beings in the entire world who want the Queen back, so Logan shares in that happiness, fussing the animal around the ears fondly.

"Do you know where she is, boy?" he asks lowly.

* * *

She is on her feet half a moment before the cell doors in the Pit begin to open with a scream of rust. It probably saves her life – when the first lunatic comes in, armed with the leg of a mattress, Elsbeth wields two. Sharpened and whittled to deadly points. She slams both of them into the side of his head, probably fracturing his skull. She could not care less. She steps over his twitching form and out into the hallway. She goes on the offensive – she has to, because she simply does not have the strength to defend herself. So she stabs the next one, possibly breaks the neck of the one after him-

And then she is surrounded.

All of them armed. And all of them mad. Even mad men know she is a woman. That's the one thing Milton has never done, has never allowed to happen. Dropping the makeshift shivs, she pulls together every scrap of Will she has. It is not much, perhaps enough for one strong spell. She summons the simplest piece of magic should can: fire. She curls her limbs inward, pulling the energy from her centre, pulling and pulling until her hands are full of flame. And then she pushes it out. The Will works. It radiates out in a scorching ring, knocking lunatics off their feet and then sizzling them to a crisp.

But then more come.

And exhausted as she is, all Elsbeth can do is slump to one knee, and wait to die. At least it is an end.

* * *

He is in the nick of time, and sees enough so that he has no hesitation (if he ever did) in cutting them all down. His sword shines, blood flows, and then there are dead lunatics; one King, one Queen left alive.

She stares at him as though he cannot possibly be real.

"Beth," he breathes.

Her face crumples, a sob immediately shaking her. "Logan …"

He drops his sword and pulls her towards him, kissing her passionately. He does not mean to, hasn't been sure he wanted to, but now she is here he has no choice. Elsbeth responds with equal fervour and desperation, clinging to him with sobs still shaking her. He pulls back, kisses her hair, her face, hugging her to him tightly.

"Logan, I thought -"

"Hush," he whispers, pressing another soft kiss to her mouth. "Don't think about it."

She nods, still crying. "Thank you …"

She is thinner than the last time she was in his arms, her collarbones clearly visible and her arms now straight lines and angles. Her hair is greasy, hanging in ratty strands around her face, and long. She has never looked less beautiful in her life, and there can be nothing further than the image of a Queen, but Logan does not care. She is here, she is alive, and he will not leave without her. They can make everything better now—reclaim the kingdom from the imposter together, he might even be redeemed in the eyes of their people-

He forces himself to stop these thoughts where they are. Too dangerous and too hopeful by half. His only responsibility is getting Elsbeth out of here and back to Bowerstone.

He kisses her forehead again and takes her hand. "Come on. There's a small beach I found on the other side of the island that we can camp on for tonight, and we'll work out a way back to the capital from there."

She lets him lead her from the Keep without objection, without comment, without thought, even. She is like a child clinging to the hand of a parent, blindly following and simply trusting that where he's leading her is the right direction. The only sound she makes is a cry of shocked delight when the dog comes lolloping up to them, his tail wagging so hard that it appeared a mere blur. He still stinks, and his fur is still matted, but he is hardly filthier than his mistress, and the euphoria hums from them both as they are reunited. The dog licks at the wounds he can reach, and then leads them onwards with a soft whine.

Logan encourages him with a quick rub of the ear, and takes them on a slow, stealthy route that avoids the sight of anyone at all. Within an hour, they are down on that beach, and he sets his sister down by the fire while he sets what booby traps he can. When assured that they are reasonably safe, he goes back to her. She is staring into the flames without blinking. She looks like a transfixed corpse. She is not responding to the dog, either, who has laid his head in her lap.

"Beth?"

"Do we have to?" she asks suddenly.

He frowns. "Do we have to what?"

"Go back."

He puts his flask down. Has she somehow been brain-washed, he thinks suddenly? Not only physically tortured, but mentally as well? "You don't want to?"

"It would be easier not to," she says.

"Easier for whom?"

"Us."

He reaches out and strokes down her cheek, his heart hammering. "Is there an 'us'?"

She looks at him for a moment, then tears well from her grey eyes, rolling down her cheeks. When he moves to pull her into his arms, she puts a hand up for him to wait until she gets her words out. It is clearly a struggle.

"All I've thought about … for _months_ is you. Th-there are so many things I've wanted to tell you, Logan, so many things I …" she sniffs and wipes ineffectually at her cheeks. "I haven't missed the castle or anything else—I've missed you. And I want to be with you, truly, without anything getting in the way. I know it will be hard and perhaps impossible, but it's all I've craved. I had so many pointless dreams and visions, but that was the one that never seemed pointless. It kept me fighting, kept me alive. _You_ kept me alive." Her piece done, she gladly comes to him, settling onto his lap with a sigh, her head pillowed on his chest. "Did you make your choice?"

He nods. "Though not until I found you were … not you."

"How could you tell?" she asks.

"It was obvious. She—he—looked the same as you, sounded like you, but so clearly _wasn't_ you. It was horrifying."

He remembers entering what he thought was the Queen's presence, a few days after docking in Bowerstone. She received him with barely concealed rage, which saddened but did not altogether confuse him. It might be natural that her anger with him surfaced after being repressed for so long. And considering what they had done, perhaps she felt abandoned. But a few moments with her alone was enough to convince him that something was not right. He could not have pinpointed it, put it into words or writing. But there was something. Perhaps it was the dog being gone. Hobson, he could easily imagine Elsbeth herself dismissing. But the dog, she would have grieved. It was the short work of one morning to realise that it was not his sister. And then, he knew better than anyone else there was only one place that she could be effectively hidden for long. A few bribes confirmed it: the 'Queen' regularly took trips by ship to an unknown destination. It gave hope enough to Logan that Elsbeth might still be alive. He had needed only to stow away.

Elsbeth nods her understanding, shuddering again. "The kingdom?" she asks. "What has he done to that?"

"Little, except begin to empty the treasury. He quashes any dissenting voices against that."

"He said he would turn it into a republic."

"Then the lure of power proved too much. He spends it on nothing but his own pleasures," Logan says, pressing a kiss to her hair. He lets loose a deep sigh. "Beth, there is nothing I wish for more than to go somewhere and build a life with you."

"Yes, then let's do that!" she says, suddenly enthused. "No one would know us. We might have to go beyond Albion, perhaps, but there must be lands past this one! Logan, we could do anything. We could be together without suffering the stigma and ignorance of others. We could even …"

"Have a family?" he asks, feeling his heartbeat spike at the very idea.

"If you'd like to," Elsbeth says, suddenly looking a little embarrassed, though she has thought about it too.

She will need to become a mother sooner or later if she is to continue their line, as is her duty. She can imagine her body swelling to accommodate their child, raising him or her to do nothing but be happy, teaching nothing but how to laugh. She wants it more than she can say. It cannot, of course, happen. Even if they did conceive a child together, they can never be an ordinary family. Any child born to her will never call Logan Father. But that, of course, is not the real problem with the scenario of abandoning the throne. It means abandoning the people, too. And that, they both know, is something beyond her. She is not Queen for herself, she never has been.

Logan slowly takes her hands. "I would like nothing more, Beth."

He doesn't need to say 'but', because she can hear the following conversation without either of them speaking.

"Then … we cannot go to Bowerstone. Not immediately. I'm in no shape to lead another revolution or even an assassination at the moment, and it's too risky to go there and think we can hide for any prolonged period of time. We have to go somewhere else."

"Where?"

She shakes her head, unable to think clearly at all.

"Aurora," Logan hits upon it.

"Can we make it that far? We couldn't stow away, it would have to be under our own steam."

"We can make it, if we've the right type of ship. But not tonight. You need to eat something and then sleep. Anything else can wait."

She stuffs whatever food he gives her into her mouth without chewing or even swallowing much. It looks like she might simply be inhaling it, which he cannot blame her for. She vomits quickly, her stomach unused to such quantities now. He silently and gently chastises her and then gives her his rations to nibble on, some water to sip. It stays down. When she is ready to sleep, Logan does as she knows he will, and lays her bedroll out beside his, arms open to receive her.

"I'm afraid, Logan," she whispers.

He kisses her forehead. "I know, dear one."

She curls herself up like a foetus in the womb, and blacks out.


	8. Day 245

**+245**

"Where did you go?' she asks the next day. "When you left me?"

The sting, whether unconscious or not, finds its mark. Logan's mouth tightens with the onset of another wave of guilt. "Exploring," he says after a pause.

"What did you discover?"

"Very little. A few islands here and there but nothing of much value. We found food enough to replenish our supplies but no people."

"So you could claim the lands for Albion?"

"For my Queen." He presses a kiss to her hair, and is more gladdened than he can express to see the shadow of her old smile. Then he makes the shadow fade away. "Is she still my Queen?"

Elsbeth considers. She spoke yesterday out of fear and weakness. She _is_ afraid of Milton, but that is because he has held complete dominion over her for so long. He has been responsible for her starvation, her torture—her madness. She is still afraid that he has removed her ability to fight him. Using the Will last night took so much out of her … But she will not allow him, pretender and usurper, to supplant her any longer. It will take time, and strenuous effort, she knows. But …

"Yes. I am still your Queen."

"Then how do you plan to take your kingdom back?"

"The same way I took it from you."

He raises a dark brow. "Much as this sounds like an excuse, Beth, I turned a blind eye where I could. I hardly banked on your success, but I did not oppose your way as harshly as I could have done."

"So Major Swift was you being _easy_ on me?' she snarls, suddenly springing away from him with all the ferocity of a jungle cat.

"No. That was me trying to incite your fury," he returns calmly.

She remembers his attempts to court her wrath, and his own death. Remaining silent, she uncurls her fists and relaxes a little, though she does not return to him.

Logan continues. "There are two further problems."

"Everyone believes him to be me," she nods.

"And he is a Hero as long as it is your blood in his veins. Is possible to starve him out? Now that you are free he has no access to your … essence."

Elsbeth shakes her head. "He always took more than he needed to."

"But still, eventually he will run dry."

"Your plan is that we should go into hiding, wait until he returns to his natural form?"

"It would give you the opportunity to recover your strength. You sorely need it, Beth."

That she cannot deny, but the idea of leaving her kingdom in someone else's hands is abhorrent. "No. We cannot risk Albion."

"Then as you say … we need allies."

She _has_ allies. She cannot believe that Sabine, Kalin, Page, _Ben_ would be oblivious. The certainty that they must be is truly painful, and she fights against the sob that comes. How could they not know? How could they be her friends and be unaware of- A bitter tear runs down her cheek. She will prove it to them. She will make them see.

She is unaware of saying it aloud until Logan nods. "I know you will. And you have at least one ally already." The dog barks indignantly until Logan laughs, stroking him under the chin. "Make that two."

The next step is a bath. There are a few freshwater ponds here, which are freezing cold but Elsbeth is beyond caring. All she needs is to be clean, and she dives in with gusto, quite literally. Once under water, she rubs at her scalp vigorously, trying to dislodge as much dirt and grease as possible, doing the same to her body. It is as if she has never felt joy before, never known the sensation of the wind; now it is all keen, sharp, fresh. She revels in the sensations, nearly delirious with the pleasure of it all. Above her is only sky. Beneath her, only water. She is surrounded by air and liberty. It is breathlessly arousing.

She rises out of the pool, water sluicing from her body, and deliberately moves toward Logan. She's not forgotten the fierce and passionate relief in his kiss. Even reduced, she knows he wants her. If not for circumstance, he would have had her against the wall of the Pit. She fully intends to have him right now. His eyes are initially dark with concern when she sashays from the water. But then they move across her body. Elsbeth feels the trail they leave across her skin as a heated shiver. His eyes are dark with something else now. When she is within reach, his hands come up to grasp her arms, neither pushing her away nor drawing her closer. Her breasts brush against the rough canvas of his coat, and her eyes flutter closed at the feeling, and at his breath on her face. If the Queen sent her identity as a woman under, kept it dormant, then Logan is waking her up. He's waking up parts of her that had been buried since he left. She breathes in his desire; breathes out her own.

She probably does not have the energy for this, but she disregards that. She has the freedom for it. She has the freedom to feel her arousal throbbing at the aperture of her thighs. The increase of blood to her nipples. The pulse of her heart through her lips.

Logan kisses her, his tongue coming out to join in a dance with hers. Great gods she has missed him. Any trace of hesitation disappears. She will not allow him to change his mind, she will _have_ him now, and then forever after. He is the same; the hands around her arms are now around her waist, bruising her flesh in the in the attempt to hold more. She gives him all that she can, leaning her weight on him, arching her spine, relinquishing awareness of everything that isn't him. He sweeps her from her feet, turns them as he does. Now she is on the ground, her brother settled between her open legs and his mouth still devouring hers.

With a loud grunt of effort, he tears himself away, puts his head in the hollow of her neck. He means not to continue, though he has not let her go, and his flesh still feels like fire against her chilled skin. She can still feel his arousal, pressed against her and straining for her wetness.

"Logan. Logan, please …" she sobs quietly.

She feels him squeeze his eyes shut. "I'll not violate you."

Elsbeth tilts his face to hers. "You won't be. Can't you see, my love? All you are doing is giving me myself back."

"You've not got the strength."

"Give it to me," she demands, kissing him again, biting his bottom lip, urging his response. She will take blood if she can have nothing else.

"Not here."

She bucks her hips; he groans like she's wounded him. She locks luminous grey eyes with his. "I am your Queen. You _will_ obey me."

He places a kiss between her collarbones. "Your Majesty."

He pulls one glove off, knowing there is still a way to bring her satisfaction without exhausting her. He takes a nipple into his mouth suddenly, sucking on the stiffened peak hard and wallowing in the noise Elsbeth makes, the way her fingers clutch at his hair to hold him there. The fingers of his hand drag down her body, down the flesh that is still smooth and still soft, lingering only to smooth over the new scars he finds there. When there is time, he will lavish them with attention, and erase the memory of the pain that put them there. But now, he continues to his destination, and slides his hand into the wet heat of her, rubbing a knuckle over her clit once and then again. Beth's head is now thrown back, the creamy column of her neck exposed and gooseflesh rising all over her body. Her chest heaves under his mouth, and a sharp cry echoes from her as he slides one finger deep into her, pumping it in and out to spread her wetness around. He has no intention of taking her here, on the bare ground, like common beasts rutting. Soon another finger joins the first, and he curls them, pushes them up as well as in, seeking that secret place. He finds it, and strokes the pad of his fingers over it; Beth's hips snap up, her whole spine arching and her moans flying from her mouth in regular, desperate noises that are nearly enough to make him forget his restraint. But this is not about him. With two fingers inside her, his thumb draws circles on her clit, and the Queen stiffens in climax. She tries almost immediately to twist away, because the sensation of it is simply far too intense; there is too much feeling, too much pleasure, and it sizzles along her body in electric lines. But Logan holds on, and he forces her to ride out the orgasm. It will leave her drained and unable to move for a while, but she needs it, and he loves her, and he will give it to her.

Finally, when her nails make him bleed in her scrabbling to get him to stop, he pulls his hand away, and slumps, head resting on her stomach and almost as exhausted as she is. It worries him slightly that she seems not to be breathing at all – but when he lifts his head up, sees the melting relief and bliss on her face, he realises she's merely forgotten to. He runs his fingertips up her side; the sensation forces her to take a shuddering gasp.

They rest.


	9. Day 247

**+247**

The next boat that arrives to the Keep is hijacked by two very well-armed people. One is clearly a bloodthirsty pirate, and the other a hardened criminal. The pilot of the ship is only a merchant, only dropping off food at the island. He doesn't recognise either of them.

Logan sets course for Aurora.


	10. Day 253

**+253**

Elsbeth's weakness frustrates her. The physical weakness, she can't do much about. Her muscles have wasted to almost nothing, and she's about as dangerous as a baby turnip at the moment. Food and training, with plenty of rest, will restore her energy and strength. It's her mental weakness that she cannot stand. The fact that she is so consumed with hatred for Milton that she cannot begin to plan _how_ to kill him. The fact that her memory is not what it was, so she finds herself trailing off mid-sentence, searching for a name or strategy. She also is not sleeping. Not without hideous nightmares of the Darkness and the monster it turned Walter into.

She'd been used to control. For the year she was Queen of Albion undisputed, control was what she had. Control over the economy, the army, the art, the people, her servants. Herself. She controlled the system and the system controlled her. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. For months now she had been at the mercy of chaos, a force so strong even control over herself has been ripped from her. Now even her hands shake.

Without Logan, she would have thrown herself overboard days ago. But Logan supports her in her weakness. There's just the two of them, and he is at the helm of their little sloop, but he always makes sure there's food on hand permanently. He writes down, step by step, how they will take down Milton, and listens to her rant and rave about how she'll rip the pretender's heart out and feed it to him. He quietly supplies her with names when she stops speaking and starts glaring at people she can't remember. He holds her throughout the entire night, calming her fears when he can and risking being struck by flailing limbs when he can't. He does not complain. It all makes her heartily ashamed. She has never shown an example of reciprocity. But neither would she wish Logan to suffer one iota more than he has done.

"You're making progress," he soothes. "You could hardly lift a sword when we left the island."

It is true that the mast and bulwarks now bear the evidence of her training, notches and cuts in the wood where she has hacked at them in lieu of a flesh and blood target. Logan currently refuses to spar with her on the grounds that someone needs to steer the ship. It's also because she'd demand he not hold back, and at the moment he'd kill her instantly. But she'll get better. Logan says she will.

Sometimes she resents his faith in her.


	11. Day 257

**+257**

The first thing the Queen does, when she wakes for a moment without feeling immediately exhausted, is look at her sleeping companion. Not the dog; he sleeps on the floor of the captain's cabin, and is still sleeping now. No, she looks at the man cocooning her in the narrow bunk. Their legs are intertwined, and one of his hands strokes her hair even in his sleep. He wears only a pair of breeches and a linen shirt, open at the neck and baring much of his chest to her. The flush of lust takes her a little by surprise – the warm shiver down her spine, the prickle across her skin, the pool of liquid heat between her legs, the stiffening of her nipples; all are unmistakable. Her second sensation is one of overwhelming relief. She's not damaged beyond repair. She doesn't _need_ this now to survive. But she wants it. She wants it very much.

She slides her fingers inside Logan's shirt, stroking the smooth flesh of his chest. Sparse hair meets her fingers as they brush further down, a dark trail that she follows unerringly. When her hand dips lower, to his abdomen, the muscles there shiver as she passes over them. He is already half-hard, waiting for her in slumber, and she ghosts her palm around him, feeling his cock swell at just that simple touch. She smiles and feels a throb of yearning at her core. Before he wakes, she slides her own nightshirt off. When Logan opens his eyes blearily, the first thing he sees are his sister's breasts, once more restored to pert roundness, rising and falling gently. Elsbeth's desire is slow and languid this morning. She burns, but she wants the fire to last. Logan's eyes widen in shock, but he doesn't need to speak. Her grey eyes are steady, sure, half-lidded with arousal. He leans forwards, mouth hungrily on hers, tongue tasting her and hands on her hips, pulling them to his own where she feels him, hard and insistent, against her.

Recognising the creaking of wood as his cue to leave, the dog slinks up to the deck.

Logan's long fingers slide through her hair, gathering it in his hands at the nape of her neck; hers move under his shirt, and they clutch at each other, desperate to get closer than skin will allow them to. They continue to devour each other for what could be hours: the ship is anchored, what difference would it make? By the time they are done with learning the taste of the other (and even in the middle of the ocean without a toothbrush in a hundred miles, he still tastes like peppermint), the Queen is so wet and turned on she's leaving a damp patch on the thigh of his breeches. It's where she has been rhythmically rocking her hips, both unconsciously and desperately seeking release. She tugs at his waistband, her mind too fogged for anything more articulate than, "Off." He obliges her, shedding both garments. Elsbeth shifts so that she is aligned above him, lowering her mouth to his body. She moves down his neck, collarbone, chest, flicking her tongue around his nipples – which, though not as sensitive as hers, still makes him draw in a sharp breath – then down his stomach. They have undergone identically different physical transformations in the time they have been apart; her brother has gained muscle mass, and she indulges in every ridge and every ab she can kiss, suck and nip. All the while, her hands cup his balls, gently fondling while adamantly avoiding touching the burning cock above them. She still doesn't touch it as she slightly parts his thighs, instead lavishing attention on his balls instead, sucking one and then the other into her hot mouth. Logan is tensing, quivering and groaning in parallel with her movements, and she has never felt as though she has more power over him. When he is tense and coiled as a spring, she kisses the head of his cock.

He draws his breath in over his teeth, and hisses, "Beth, I don't know if I can last if you-"

"I have faith in you," she grins devilishly.

And then she takes him as deep as she can. Logan's fingers fist tightly in her hair, but he doesn't attempt to dictate the pace, though it's clear it's taking every bit of his restraint. His eyes roll back as she moves her head back and forth, using lips and tongue in a way even she didn't know she could. Instinct tells her when to stop, and Logan lets out a loud moan when she does. It's impossible to tell whether it's of relief or disappointment. The next one is of pure ecstasy when she lowers herself onto him, pulsing around him and sending grateful pleasure rocketing through both of them. Somehow, and neither of them know how, Logan holds on long enough to fuck her into oblivion, and they crash into it together.

It takes three days longer than it really should to get to Aurora. Two of those days, the sloop is entirely stationary.


	12. Day 260

**+260**

They sneak into the temple late at night, following Kalin. The stealth is Logan's suggestion; the Queen's pride would see her marching in with triumph, would see all Aurora cheering and swearing vengeance in her name. Logan points out they have no idea whether Milton could be here or not.

Kalin is entirely alone, kneeling before an altar with her head bowed in prayer. When she is finished, she finds two deposed monarchs waiting behind her. Logan crouches by the entrance, sword and pistol in hand and keeping watch. Elsbeth faces the Auroran leader. Kalin takes the scene in calmly, coolly, though it is clear she does not understand.

Then she bows. "Your Majesty."

Such is Elsbeth's gratitude that she pulls Kalin into a tight hug. "You know me?"

Kalin steps away. "Of course. Why are you here? Captain Finn was kind enough to come and tell us more than a month ago."

"Ben knows?" the queen gasps.

Clearly, the two women are talking at cross-purposes. "I thought he came on your orders."

Understanding dawns. "What has he done?"

What _he_ has done, it transpires, is remove Aurora's protection. Is revoke their status as a full part of Albion. Is withdraw aid. Elsbeth listens in deepening disgust. Tears roll down the faces of both women, one speaking and the other taking it all in. When Kalin closes her lips, Elsbeth opens hers, and spills out the impossible truth.

But if anyone would believe that truth, it is Kalin. "I know enough of darkness to recognise it, my Queen. In you I had never seen it. And I could not understand why you would abandon us _now_ , after all that had passed …"

"I never would."

"Someone's coming," Logan interrupts lowly. He cocks the pistol, then lowers it. "An Auroran."

"This is a tale best told in daylight," Kalin says. "Come back to my home, Your Majesty, you will be able to rest peacefully there."

"Both of us?" Elsbeth asks, firmness in her voice. If Logan is to be cast out to sleep on the desert sand, then so shall she be.

Kalin's eyes flit to Logan. "Both of you."

Elsbeth sleeps from the moment she lays her head on the pillow. Logan presses a lingering kiss to her mouth and then breathes a long sigh. Kalin, watching from the doorway, speaks.

"Did you make your promise knowing you would break it?"

"No."

"I thought not. You had the look of an honest man."

"If I gave you … an explanation, would you accept my sincerest apology?"

"It depends upon the explanation," she says finally.

The weight on Logan's shoulders does not shift. The reasons he has, though true, sound like a fabrication. "Theresa told me that Aurora was lost. She told me that sending men here would only be feeding the Darkness. It was easy to believe, and I had no reason to _disbelieve_ her. My father had spoken so often of her wisdom."

"And the tyranny?"

He closes his eyes. _And remember, King … history forgives even when people cannot_. What else did that mean? "It seemed the only way. I couldn't conceive that I could save my kingdom _and_ all its people. I'm no Hero," he says, casting a glance back at the queen. He then faces Kalin. "And I am truly sorry for that weakness. And for the harm it caused your people."

She finally nods. "Apology accepted."


	13. Day 275

**\+ 275**

The invasion cannot happen as the last one did. To be sure, it was a backup plan, but Milton was Queen. He is loved (0r at least the people still have lingering affection for her), and this cannot be just done. The true Queen feels assassination is the only way forwards. With Page's help, she knows it will be achievable.

They are floating offshore of Bowerstone's harbour, where they have been anchored all day. It's too dangerous to approach in daylight. Elsbeth has no idea where to go except the old Resistance HQ. The air is fetid and thick with industry, worse than it was before. Perhaps she never noticed. She knows that Reaver must be aware of the royal switch. He was probably the first one to spot it. Perhaps he and Milton were in league all along and-

Logan's warm hand covers hers, lifting her fingers to hold them. She's been shredding the gunwhale with her now-broken fingernails. He does not comment. "I'm not afraid," she says.

Still no comment, as an agreement would be patronising; a rebuttal, harmful to her shell of confidence.

"Page's HQ was in the- in the sewers," she stammers out. "By the pub, the- Whatever the pub's called. _Riveter's Rest_." Her shoulders lower – it's hardly a victory, remembering a name. But it feels like one. She can do this. She can explain it all in a way Paige understands, and then they'll get hold of Ben, and then they'll get into the Sanctuary and properly rearm, and then they'll get into the castle and slaughter Milton like the creature he is.

"One step at a time," Logan murmurs.

She turns her head to press it into the hollow of his throat briefly, inhaling the warm, sea-salt smell of him. One step at a time. Get to Paige. Assuming Milton hasn't had her arrested. Elsbeth remembers the way to Resistance HQ, though she never thought she'd be leading Logan there. Not willingly, anyway. If Page is still at liberty, the Queen's plan is simple: go in, surrender, be taken to Page and then talk her into the truth.

As their ship nears the docks, however, her heart stutters to a halt. There are currently four ships docked, and their passengers are slowly disembarking. Slowly, because each female passenger is being checked. They're looking for her. They've tarried too long in Aurora – Milton knows she has escaped and is looking for her. "Oh no."

She'll be discovered, and taken to him, and strapped down and devoured and tortured, and who's to say she won't be put somewhere worse, or forced to watch Logan be tortured endlessly while she goes mad, and maybe she's already mad and-

Heavy hands descend on her arms, pulling her to face her brother. "Beth, look at me."

"Kill me," she says.

"That's not going to happen. They won't find you, and he won't take you. I promise."

"Promise to kill me then," she begs. "Promise me I'll be dead before he can get hold of me."

His face is stricken. "Beth-"

"Promise me!"

"I promise," he finally says. "But that isn't going to happen. It's near dark now – we'll anchor, wait for night, then slip to shore. We'll swim. It'll be filthy, but it's safest. Does that sound like a plan?"

She nods, fingers fumbling for the anchor chain already. It hits the water with a splash. "Right. Of course. We'll swim."

"Once we're on land, Industrial is full of places to hide. We'll avoid patrols and find Page. Yes?"

"Yes."

They should get below now though, out of sight. Except that does not stop their little sloop from becoming the object of attention. When there is no visible movement from the craft, the Queen's Elite guards come to investigate for themselves. Prepared for this eventuality, Logan and Elsbeth are hardly caught unawares. They lie in wait. And perhaps a year ago, Elsbeth would have quailed at the idea of murdering a man who is merely following orders. Tonight, she slits the throat of the first one from behind, covering his mouth so that he can't cry out when he feels the cold metal on his neck. She catches him as he drops, pulls him behind some cargo and watches his feet stop twitching. Logan kills the second, with more scruple but the same efficiency. The man's neck is broken. Footfalls on deck: the leader of the squad up there, making sure they are not hiding in the rigging.

In the dark, Logan holds up two fingers.

She shakes her head and holds up three. They'll have left someone still in the boat.

"Pratt, Jones! Anything?"

Pratt and Jones – the two corpses now down here with them. Elsbeth would have preferred not to know their names.

"Pratt!"

The captain of this squad is severely stupid. Rather than assume his men are dead or otherwise incapacitated, he assumes they're just deaf. He comes stomping over and down the ladder to see what the silence is about.

"Oi! Are you two-"

Logan cuts the tendon behind his knee; Elsbeth seizes his head as he tumbles and blasts a fatal jolt of electricity into his brain. He's dead in seconds. One more on deck. One more in the boat.

"We don't have to kill them," Logan whispers. "A fire will be enough of a distraction; we can slip overboard and swim. Like we planned."

He's concerned about her as much as for her now. For his sake, she nods. Silent as cats, they go up top. Elsbeth finds some spare sail canvas and lets fire bloom from her fingers. Once it's fully alight, the cry of alarm happens and they are already in the water. It is brown and almost thick with filth, but Elsbeth doesn't have to work to distract herself from the taste of raw sewage. Her mind, her entire consciousness, is on the image in her head of the myriad and imaginative ways she will kill Milton. There is something viscerally satisfying about the idea of putting him in his own Pit, but she probably won't do that. She'll probably slit his throat, slowly, and swim in his blood.

Logan is perhaps right to be worried.

Rebel HQ is utterly deserted. There is not a sign of Page or any of her rebel friends, though there are markers that someone has been here recently. Food wrappers, ragged blankets, candle stubs. A vague smell of old human detritus. Elsbeth is so angry she punches a wall. It is a mark of how well her recovery is coming along that the brick, rather than her fist, is the thing that comes away broken. Once she has punched a few more, kicked some, and hurled a fireball at a door, the queen bursts into tears. Logan apparently elects to ignore her, leaving it to the dog to comfort her. This the creature does, whining and slinking towards her to lick at her fingers. She doesn't stop crying, but she does crouch and embrace her most loyal friend, burying her face into his matted fur and sobbing out her troubles. Or at least sobbing off the froth on top of the soup.

A clanging sound draws her attention, and she finds Logan dragging, impossibly, a rusted tin bath out of a forgotten corner. "It will help," he tells her.

She can only agree. Later, when their bathwater is cooling, the two of them a lying together, naked, on a nest of the least holey blankets. Logan sighs into her wet hair. "What now?"

"We still have to find Page. Someone must know where she is."

"Alright."

"But not right now," she says. "You're thinking it, I know. We need to rest."

He looks at her. "We do."

She moves to kiss him, just intending it as a goodnight gesture. But they are in Bowerstone, she has finally let go some of the emotion previously coiled in her gut, and they are, for the moment, clean. When they win this, it will mean everything is different. She will be watched constantly for anything amiss, never allowed to be truly alone unless she explicitly orders it, which she will not be able to do often without it appearing suspicious. The next time she will be able to indulge the passion she feels for Logan could be weeks, months away.

The same thought seems to have occurred to him. Their kiss turns hot, open mouthed, needy. Her tongue seeks his, and her hands slid up his arms to clutch at his forearms. When he bites lightly at her bottom lip, she whimpers and her nails dig in slightly to his skin. His hands pull her back to his chest, and then up to cup each breast in hand, squeezing the soft flesh and then taking her nipples between thumb and forefinger, and pinching. Elsbeth twitches, a moan escaping her mouth this time. She's not passive, by any means, and pushes her hips back into his. She is already wet and aching for him, and they both let loose sounds of pleasure as Logan's hard cock traces her slit, collecting moisture.

"Beth," he breathes raggedly, "Beth-"

She tilts her head back, exposing her neck and trailing her mouth along the underside of his jaw. "I'm here. Logan, I'm here, please- I need you-"

Logan suckles hard enough at her pulse point to leave a mark. "Tell me," he commands. He pulls suddenly at her nipple, tugging it briefly away from her body, her body following in a curve.

"In- _in me_ ," she gasps out.

They scramble briefly, Logan holding her hips and Elsbeth bracing herself on her hands and knees. In the next second, Logan thrusts into her, sheathing himself in one strong stroke and utterly filling her. Their coupling is initially rushed, Elsbeth racing to her first climax and Logan just as eager to give it to her. It almost seems seconds before the blinding rush of pleasure is upon her, and she is hardly aware of her cry of ecstasy or the way it echoes a raw sound around the empty tunnels. Logan's movements do not slow, instead the deep, swift movements picking up speed. He slides his hand under her belly and urges her up onto her knees, curling her arm around the back of his neck. He's absorbed utterly in her – in the feel of her, yes, but also the look of her, glowing even in the darkness, literally as well as metaphorically, the lines of Will illuminating brightly and humming against him where their bodies connect. A feeling like electricity crackles along their nerves, static snapping at every place they are touching. Logan has one hand palming a breast, and Elsbeth takes the other one, pushing it hurriedly down to the apex of her thighs, moaning at the pad of his fingers sliding and pressing at the sweet spot. His name spills from her lips in an endless chant, primal and desperate.

"Logan, Logan, gods don't stop, please- Logan, Avo, never stop -"

He dips his head and bites at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and any speech of hers is lost in a keening mewl of orgasm. Her whole body tightens and clenches around him, the sensations causing him to lose any hold on self-control and come hard, spilling himself into her in white-hot spurts.

The next thing either of them is aware of, they are lying still, curled around each other. In the dark, where they will always be curled around each other. The only place they can be this open with their feelings. There is not one person in the entire kingdom who might understand the purity of their love. Reaver, naturally, would understand how it came about, but the profanity of it would be what titillated him. Well, sacred or profane, they need it to live and breathe now, so it will continue. In the dark if necessary.


	14. Day 277

**+277**

They are woken the next day by someone trying to be stealthy. Someone creeping in on tiptoes, making a conscious effort not to be noticed. It is that that makes both of them jerk instantly awake, Logan reaching for his sword as Elsbeth reaches for her Will. Ignoring her nakedness, she rises to a crouch and leaves Logan's side. Their intruder is apparently unaware of their presence; they have stopped at Page's map table. There's a clatter of objects dropped onto the table's surface, and then the quieter sounds of them being shifted through. From her crouch on the floor, the intruder looks like a huge, black, looming figure, capable of anything – Elsbeth cannot bear to wait any longer, and grabs the nearest pointed metal object; it happens to be a broken pipe.

In a flash, she is up, with one arm wrapped firmly around the person's neck, the other hand raised high above, pipe ready to come crashing-

Logan's fingers grab hers. "Beth, no!"

The jarring noise of the pipe clattering to the floor breaks Elsbeth from her haze. She sees why Logan has stopped her. She is half-strangling a child, a ginger-haired boy who is dirty and likely a thief, but probably not an agent of Milton's.

"Who sent you?" she demands harshly. "How did you find out about this place?"

He doesn't reply, and it occurs to her that he probably can't breathe properly. She loosens her grip slightly. In the first instance, he takes a breath, and in the second, releases a string of expletives damning her and every one of her ancestors to a very unhappy place.

Logan, who is somehow wearing trousers, moves to stand in front of the boy. "Answer her question: who sent you?"

"No-one bleedin' sent me, bloody hell! D'you fink if anybody had I'd've agreed if I knew I was gonna be jumped on by a fucking naked madwoman?"

Oh. She is still naked. She finds the pile of clothes and pulls on Logan's discarded shirt, her slim frame swimming in it. "If no one sent you then how to you know to come here?"

"S'good for shelter sometimes. These old tunnels are full of kids when it's bad weather outside."

 _Kids and hobbs,_ Elsbeth remembers, which is virtually the same thing. But this isn't merely the sewer tunnels, and this base couldn't be found by chance. "You know about the Resistance?" she asks.

His eyes sharply find hers. He is silent.

Logan shakes his lapels and nearly tears one of them off, the fabric of his clothes held together only by a worn seam. "I need you to do something for us."

"Sod off!"

Logan reaches into a bag and pulls out a handful of gold sovereigns. "I need you to do something for us," he repeats.

The kid sniffs, though his eyes have gone wide and keep flicking back to the coins. Elsbeth wonders when the last time he's seen a sovereign is, never mind this amount. She feels another surge of anger and shame. She had begun to make things better for the people of her kingdom. Children like this could have stayed children. Damn Milton.

"What?" asks the boy.

"We need to contact the Resistance. Specifically the leader, Page."

Lust for gold or not, the boy is suddenly unsure. "Dunno nothing about no Resistance."

"Yes you do, or you wouldn't know how to get in here," Elsbeth says. "And there's no way Page would allow whatever Mi- the Queen is doing to the people without putting up a fight about it. You don't have to tell us where they are. Just ask Page to come to us."

" _If_ I knew where any Resistance was, she ain't gonna just come is she?" asks the kid. His tone is scornful. He thinks they're stupid.

"Hold on a moment," Elsbeth says. She grabs a lump of blackened wood and one of the larger bits of burned paper on the table. It seems as though it had once been a map. Inspiration has struck, and she draws a simple guild seal on the paper. It isn't much, but it might convince Page to come. Might. She takes it back to the child. "Give her this."

Logan holds out two sovereigns to him. "Ten more when you come back with Page."

They are gone from his hand in a movement faster than either adult can see. The child is now merely a flash of ginger hair bolting out the door. Slowly, Elsbeth relaxes with a sigh. "He saw too much."

"He doesn't know what he saw, he's a child."

"Logan, he's obviously living on the streets. He's seen enough to know what we were doing."

"What are you suggesting we do about it?"

"Nothing, nothing!" She swallows. "Gods above, I don't want another Nigel Ferret." Despite her words, she is already choosing to think the worst of what the child would do with full knowledge. "And if we make an effort to buy him off then he'll know the value of what he's seen."

Logan reaches for her, pulling her into his body. "He didn't seem to recognise either of us."

"My face is on those coins you gave him," she points out.

"No, the Queen's face is on those coins. As far as he knows the Queen is ensconced in the castle, loathed by her people."

Elsbeth shudders. She cannot imagine going back to a life like that, encircled by guards and kept behind silken bars. She will lose her mind if she has to go back to that, if she can't simply stride out among her people and not have to worry about an assassin in the crowds. "Don't remind me. There's going to be so much damage to repair."

"You managed it before, under more straitened circumstances than this. You'll manage it again. I know better than anyone how difficult it is not to love you, Beth."

That's true, and he has reminded her once again of why she is in love with him, too. It's because despite the fact that Logan was the first one to show the darkness which resides in human nature, he is also the one who feeds the light inside her. He is the one who tells her she can be kind, she can save her kingdom, she can redress the balance in favour of justice once more, she can do the right thing. He bends his head to kiss her slowly and deeply, attempting to infuse her with his own faith in her, his own certainty that she will triumph simply by being herself. Elsbeth slides her hands around him to stroke down his back, before cupping his arse and firmly pulling his hips against hers. She walks them backwards until the rim of the table meets her buttocks. She pulls her mouth from Logan's to move her mouth along his jaw, up to his ear. She briefly nips his earlobe and whispers heatedly.

"I want you."

But she doesn't want him to address the longing ache between her legs; instead she unbuttons the front of his trousers, pushing the material down his muscular legs. With bold hands, she cups him, fondling his cock and balls until he's gasping, his fingers gripping her shoulders hard. Harder still, in a moment, she hopes. In her hand, he is hot and hard, liquid beginning to form at his tip. Watching him begin to lose his tightly-valued control always arouses her, and right now he looks absolutely delicious - and that being so, she intends to taste him as thoroughly as she can. She sinks to her knees and licks the wetness from the head of his cock, savouring the saltiness as she swirls her tongue around him. She glances up to meet his eyes, which are so dilated as to be black pools of desire. He brushes aside some of her hair which has fallen into her eyes, and his fingers stay there, wrapped in the strands and tugging ever-so-slightly on her scalp. A pleasurable shudder runs through her, and then she takes him into her mouth, as much of the rigid flesh as she can manage. Her senses fill with _Logan_ ; with the smell of him, the feel of his increasingly-tense muscles beneath her hands, the harsh, ragged strain of his lungs, the swollen sacs in her fingers, aching with his seed.

She pushes forward again, and again, moving her lips and tongue around him, inhaling him and feeling him to be completely at her mercy. She can feel him on the brink, but before he falls over it, he pulls her back by her hair. She opens her mouth to protest – at the loss, not the slight pain – but Logan pulls her to her feet and then lifts her, laying her back onto the table. Without a seconds' pause, he steps between her legs and spreads them. One hand slides under her back, curling under her hips and jerking them up. With the other he palms a breast under the shirt, roughly tugging at an already sensitive nipple.

Elsbeth's own breath hitches. "Logan … Logan, please-"

Her brother drops to his knees and buries his face between her thighs. There is no gentle mouthing of her inner legs, no teasing or slowly winding her up to a pitch. He simply devours her dripping core with lips and teeth and tongue, as if he will never taste her again. Elsbeth, spread out and open on the table, feels like a banquet for one, which is exactly how Logan is treating her. She loves it. Her climax is not slow to find her, not when Logan is putting his tongue to work in such a delicious way. With a wailing keen of his name, she comes, so hard she sees stars. Normally the aftermath of an orgasm might make her feel lethargic, but this one doesn't, merely making the need to have him all the more urgent. She grabs at his shoulders, her fingernails more than likely breaking the skin in her haste to pull him up, pull him _in_.

They are both aware that this could be the last time in a long time, that once Page does come she will insist that Elsbeth will not be left alone at any point. She cries out with fierce joy as Logan slides inside her. They will defeat Milton. They will make her Queen again. They will claim victory. She has always felt like this whenever the two of them are one, physically connected – as if there is nothing in the world that could stand against her. He makes her feel invincible. And it is with that sense of untouchability that she orgasms again, her cries raw and obscenely loud in the space.


	15. Day 279

**+279**

It is the next day, perhaps, and their solitude is undisturbed. They have filled the hours with training, with rest, with fucking.

Logan is trying to take Elsbeth's mind off the fact that Page has still not come, and she is trying to let him.


	16. Day 280

**+280**

Elsbeth is shooting lightning bolts across the room when Page finally appears. Or rather, Logan appears, from behind the corner, followed by her former comrade, who has a pistol aimed at his head.

"It appears we have visitors, Beth," Logan said, sounding calm and entirely unalarmed.

Visitors? There is a decisive click from behind her own back; some of Page's men have snuck in without her noticing, which is impressive. Two of them have guns aimed at her, the other three have naked sabres in her direction. Nonetheless, she is overjoyed to see them.

"Page!" She takes a few steps forward without thinking, a broad smile on her face.

Page immediately switches aim between her and Logan. "That's close enough!"

Elsbeth stops, though she cannot quite keep the smile away even so. "You said that to me the first time we met, d'you remember?"

"I remember," Page says coldly. "I remember you being quite convincing then, and it's for the sake of that friendship I'm here now. You've got a lot of nerve, to think I'd fall for a trap this-"

"Page, it isn't a trap. I mean you no harm, I swear."

"Is that a fact?" Page asks, sneering and nodding at Elsbeth's hands.

Elsbeth looks down to see there are still blue sparks playing between her fingers, a residue of the magic she has been casting for the few hours. She shakes them away. "Sorry. I just want to talk to you. To explain."

"Oh now you want to explain?" Page spits, fury in her voice. "Not when you imposed tuition fees for schools? Not when you cut benefits for the homeless? Not when you repealed child labour laws? _Now_ you want to explain?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm all ears, _Your Majesty!"_

"It wasn't me. That creature inhabiting my throne, my _skin_ , isn't me. It's an imposter."

There is a pause, and then a laugh bubbles out of Page's mouth. It is short, and incredulous, and then the mask of anger is back again. She steadies her aim and Elsbeth realises she really is prepared to shoot her. "If that's the best you can do, it's not good enough."

"I can prove it."

Another sneer. She clearly doesn't believe her. "Then prove it."

"Do you have men watching the castle? Contact one of them. Ask them where the Queen is this evening." Page indicated to one of her men, who ran back through the tunnels. Elsbeth continues. "That's _not_ me, Page. Ask yourself, why would I do anything you've just accused me of now, of all times. Why not when I had one year to save the kingdom from the Darkness? Why would I, when confronted with a task so great, would I take the hardest road _then_ , but not now? Why would I suddenly start caring so much about my own pleasure?"

"Power corrupts," Page answered, indicating Logan.

"I thought we'd covered why I became a tyrant," he said mildly.

"Page, in all the time you've known me, I've always chosen to sacrifice something of mine so that my people don't have to. Tell me that's not true!"

"It _was_ true."

"It still is true. The Queen who came back from dealing with those assassins last year was not me, it was an imposter."

"You've said that already. If you want me to believe you then I'll need details."

"Alright."

There's time to fill until Page's man gets back, so Elsbeth takes her time. She sits down on the floor, far away from everything that might be perceived as a threat, and spins her tale. She keeps it simple, playing down the months of agonies and tortures as much as she can. Even then, it's a struggle to fight through the tightness in her chest, the panic in her throat. She manages to keep talking.

She hunted down Faraday, Godwin and Turner.

Except there was no Turner.

Milton had murdered Hobson and captured her.

He had used Godwin's discoveries and Faraday's technology to change himself into the Queen.

He had imprisoned her in the bowels of his insane asylum.

He had come to Albion and been corrupted by his power.

Logan had known there was something wrong, and come to find her.

Logan had rescued her.

They had made their way to Aurora, and from there to Bowerstone.

"That's it?" Page asks sceptically.

"More or less."

"More, or less?"

"More."

Page sighs and then sits down too, placing her pistol across her lap and no longer pointing it at Elsbeth. "It sounds ludicrous."

"I imagine it does. But more ludicrous than my being a mythical Hero, or walking corpses, or defeating a primal force of darkness?"

Page purses her lips. She then waves at Logan. "And him? How come he was the only one to notice you weren't you? Why didn't I see it? Or Ben, you were always very close with him."

"You tell me," Elsbeth retorts. Then then, because she simply can't help it, she spits, "Don't you think I asked myself those questions, over and over again, while I was stuck in that hole, surrounded by criminal lunatics? Don't you think I wanted to know why my allies, my _closest friends_ hadn't been able to spot the impostor walking around wearing my identity? So, really, Page, why don't you have some answers for me now? Why didn't anyone but Logan - who, by the way, hadn't seen me for months _before_ I disappeared - see that something was wrong? Why wasn't the whole bloody army mobilised to come and find me?"

The silence rings through the burned-out space, in which Elsbeth's harsh breathing makes it clear just how much she is holding back. Page is back to pointing her gun again, and it is clear why; there is a glowing ring of fresh embers in a three-foot radius of the Hero, where once again her Will has escaped her.

Elsbeth speaks again, trying not to cry and utterly failing. "I'll tell you why: because I was a tool. Because I was to be used to roll back Logan's actions, and that was it. Logan knew because he knows me. No one else bothered."

"That's not true," Page says uneasily.

"Yes it is," is the bitter reply. "That's why we've only ever been to one party together, Page, and it ended with balverines. You don't know anything about me. Not even enough to know that I kept my promises, after my coronation, because it's who I am."

The atmosphere is shattered when the man whom Page sent to ascertain where the Queen was comes crashing back in. He is panting, and his eyes glue to Elsbeth. "That's not possible," he gasps out.

"What? Porter, tell me!"

"I seen her with me own eyes, Page, the Queen was in that castle! She come down to the kitchens and beat the pastry cook 'cause the custard in her tart was curdled."

Are custard tarts real? Elsbeth must have eaten them at some point in her life, but can't now conceive that anything so dainty and pointless truly exists. Page is shaking her head. "That settles it then. She's been here the whole time."

She puts her weapon away. Her men do the same thing. She offers her hand to Elsbeth. "I'm truly sorry, Your Majesty."

The others in the chamber all bow deeply. "Your Majesty," they mutter.


	17. Day 286

**+286**

It isn't hard to convince Ben, when he is brought in on the plan.

"Plus," he says, "the dog seems to think it's you."

He seems to share Page's feeling, that he of all people should have known Elsbeth wasn't Elsbeth, so his shame makes him avoid her. Avoid her eyes, at any rate. Avoid being alone with her. He treats her as though they'd been in a relationship, and he'd been with someone else, which Elsbeth finds amusing. If any part of that is accurate, then surely it is she who has taken another lover.


	18. Day 300

**+300**

Her patience won't last much longer. They have the plan. They need to move. Milton needs to die.


	19. Day 311

**+311**

At Elsbeth's insistence, they travel through the night to Mistpeak's Dweller's encampment. They have been largely left alone by Milton, as he can still generate his wealth from places more convenient to exploit than the mountains.

Sabine is therefore cautious, and distant, when he sees Elsbeth and Logan, but allows them to stay for a night. Boulder is very happy to see the dog, which helps.


	20. Day 312

**+312**

The strategy, such as it is, is very simple. One of Page's agents is married to an apprentice in the royal laundry. She has passed one of the Queen's gowns and cloaks on to the Resistance. Elsbeth dons it. She swims in it, as she has not yet regained all the weight that she had previous to her incarceration and Milton has evidently gained it. Happily, there are laces which may be tightened to hug her figure better. The only good thing she can say about the unwieldy, ridiculous gown, heavy with silks, gold thread and jewels sewn into the fabric, is that it provides ample space to hide an astonishing variety of weapons.

And even if there weren't, she was a living weapon before, and now vengeance has sharpened her to lethal precision.

Once it is past midnight, she uses the guild seal platform at the top of the Dweller Camp. If any part of their plan worried her, it was this. That she would have forgotten how to use the ancient devices, or that there would be nothing to activate if Milton had somehow gained access to the Sanctuary. But no, the gods are with her, and it works perfectly, transporting the three of them to the intact, if dusty and covered with cobwebs, Sanctuary.

The dog leaps off the platform first and disappears into the adjoining rooms. He gives the occasional happy woof as his humans head for the armoury. Armed and equipped with Heroic weapons, they go back to the platform.

From there, it seems but a short journey to the royal mausoleum. Elsbeth refuses to look at her father's tomb, knowing that to think about how close to finally being home she is will probably break her. Added to which, she is looking forward with relish to the murder she is about to commit. She doesn't think Sparrow would have approved of that.

At the bottom of the steps leading to the gardens, she pauses, looking at her brother. "How do I look?"

"Not haughty enough. Milton doesn't give a fig about anyone."

She listens, lowers her shoulders and raises her chin, curls her upper lip just a fraction.

Logan nods. "Better."

"Be careful."

"You too."

They share a brief kiss, but no other kind of farewell, before they separate. Logan is going to open the gates of the castle to Page's strike team. Elsbeth is going for Milton. He slips through the shadows while she strides into the lights. The dog goes with him.

There are a pair of Elite Guards on the doors, who snap to attention at her approach. She can see they are uncertain though. "Your Majesty! I- I thought you had retired two hours ago, Your Majesty."

"Clearly not," she snaps. "Now do I have to open the door to my own castle, or are you even slightly competent?"

They hasten to let her inside.

She heads down the corridors and hallways that she knows so intimately, heading for the royal chambers. All the servants she passes flatten themselves against the wall; all the guards snap to attention. They are all well-armed, she notes. That could prove problematic if her plan fails. At the doors to the royal chambers there are two more guards.

Instead of snapping to attention, they stare. Evidently as far as they know, the Queen is inside. They even raise their weapons. "Halt!"

She stops and glares with narrow eyes. "I _beg_ your pardon?" she hisses.

The one who spoke initially seems to deflate slightly, but is determined. "Your- Your Majesty, forgive me, how did you-"

"How did I _what,_ you fool?"

"You- You told us, a hour ago, that you were not to be disturbed. These doors haven't been unlocked since."

"And I used the passageway to access the gardens rather than be _interrogated by my own soldiers_!" There is no such passageway, but evidently he is unaware of that.

He swallows hard, audibly, but still persists. This might get messy. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the captain said to be on the lookout for any one trying to access-"

"So now I'm an impostor am I!" She undoes the ties on her cloak and tosses at his silent companion. "Take this to my laundress and have it cleaned. Make sure she knows I expect it pristine and dry tomorrow. As for you, before I have you whipped for your insolence, I invite you in to inspect my chambers and make sure I am not in them already!"

The combination of her assurance and anger works; the one scurries off with her cloak and the other fumbles with the lock of the royal chambers. She doesn't wait for him to gesture her inside, and moves through the door confidently into the antechamber.

Once there, it is a quick thing to use a Force spell to lift a bust of Walter from the Queen's desk, and slam it into the back of his head. She catches him before he hits the ground. From a strap on her thigh, Elsbeth pulls a wickedly sharp knife.

The bedchamber is empty; a chink of golden light and the sound of water tell her that Milton is in the bath. It's too easy. He's even facing away from the door, and the door hinges have been oiled so there's no sound as she slips in. Too easy. Too easy to crouch, grab long hair the same length and colour as her own, wrench it back, expose a throat exactly like hers, lay the silver blade along it.

Wide eyes meet hers. "No! It's not-"

"Oh, but it is," she murmurs. "And you know those in-depth monologues you used to treat me to, while I was at _your_ mercy?" She presses down with the knife, and draws it across with a smooth, sure stroke. "Let's just say I haven't wasted the lesson."

She watches with unhindered glee as blood froths into a crimson foam, as he claws at the air that's refusing to enter his lungs, as the liquid still being pumped futilely by his heart seeps down his torso into the water. It's soon stained vermillion - and too soon, Milton's death throes are over, and he is still. She pauses, wondering what happens now, whether the magic he used will-

It does wear off. The skin of the corpse bubbles up and down, transforming the body of a woman into that of a man, washing away the Will lines, melting down breasts and drawing out a shrivelled, pointless member. Elsbeth stands and simply laughs. Laughs until she has a headache from it.

She is still laughing when the guard she knocked out comes around. Doesn't stop when he storms into the bathroom and sees the corpse of a man he's never met slumped in the Queen's bloodied bathtub. "What the cunting _fuck_ -"

"Oh, you have no idea," the Queen grins. "Apologies for the bump on the head. By the way, my brother and the Resistance are at the gates. Be a lamb and let them in, won't you?"

There can be no confusion as to who she is. "I- I- At once, Your Majesty!"

It seems but a moment before Logan, Ben and Page are all in her chambers, all of them pointing weapons in every direction. And then at her, stood in the bathroom door way. "Elsbeth?" Ben asks.

In answer, she steps aside to reveal Milton. "It's over," she says, and begins laughing again.

Logan sheathes his sword and pulls her to him, pressing a kiss to her hair. "It's over," he says.

He keeps saying it, keeps embracing her, until the tears have rightfully taken over from the giggles, and until a measure of peace has taken over from the tears.


	21. Day 313

**+315**

The Queen has slept for the better part of three days. Logan has fought to make sure she has done so undisturbed. She has been guarded around the clock, of course, not out of sight for one moment. For most of the time she has been asleep, Logan himself has watched over her. He has happily left Page to explain what she can to the baffled castle staff and guards.

However, his sister needs to eat something. The maid has come and left a steaming tray; he thinks it is soup. He asked them to prepare something simple and nutritious. He had not forgotten the look on her face when Page's man mentioned custard tarts.

He sits down on the edge of the vast bed, and even next to her, Elsbeth is still at the end of his arm's reach. He leans towards her and strokes the pad of his thumb over her cheek. "Beth. Wake up, Beth."

She groans, moans, and turns over. Away from him.

He has to smile despite himself, and tries again, this time gently shaking her shoulder. "Beth, wake up."

"Go 'way," she muttered.

"Aren't you hungry?"

A pause.

"There's soup. And some bread."

"Is it fresh?"

"Certainly smells it."

A moment longer, and then she sits up and fluffs the pillows behind her. "Fine. Bring it to me."

He smirks. "Your Majesty."

As she eats, slurping her soup in a way he can't quite be unperturbed by, she talks through mouthfuls of bread and butter. "What have I missed?"

"I don't think-"

"Tell me."

He sighs. "Now that the guard are no longer an intimidating presence on the streets, unrest has begun. Some people are calling for reform."

A royal eyebrow quirks. "Reform?"

Another sigh. She understands too well what lies between his words. "Revolution, in some quarters."

"I see. Is there a ledger of what Milton did? What he spent Albion's money on?"

"I've servants compiling lists, yes. Most of it is on display, however. Artwork, silks, gold, jewels. Horses. The usual things people think of when they think of decadence."

"His own pleasure."

"Essentially."

"At my people's expense." She snorts. "So much for an end to kings and queens."

"I've taken the liberty of drawing up some decrees for you to sign," Logan says. "They're on your desk. The crimes I thought you'd find most urgent to rectify. Schools, healthcare, that sort of thing."

"What would I do without you?" She puts her tray down on the floor beside the bed and leans back against the pillows. She is smiling in that way that makes heat arrow to his groin. "So, we're home."

"We are."

"Though I'm not sure we can really be home until we've … christened it."

Looking entirely enticing (and smug) now, the Queen stretches, pulling her nightshirt tight over her breasts. The fabric clearly outlines her nipples, and Logan can't resist leaning forward and pinching one. He doesn't regret a thing when a delighted gasp comes from Elsbeth. He snakes his hand under the light blanket, to find that she's somehow shed the lower half of her night attire. Keeping her eyes on his, Elsbeth spread her legs and lifts her hips slightly, giving him better access. Logan slowly drags a knuckle upwards through her folds, collecting the moisture already seeping from her. She jerks and moans when he presses against her clit. He repeats the action, knowing what she wants and refusing to do it. When he has refused to even approach her core for about the tenth him, Elsbeth arches her back with a sound of mingled frustration and pleasure that he wants to wring from her over and over.

She bites her lip briefly. "Logan …"

"Yes?" he asks mildly. "Is there something I can do for you, sister dear?"

She shivers and finally snaps, putting her hand over his and guiding his index finger to her entrance. Her eyes flutter shut when he pushes inside, barely able to hold back his own noise of pleasure at her tight, wet heat. He pumps his finger in and out of her, adding another shortly after the first while his thumb flicks her clitoris over and over. The pulsing of her around his hand gets faster, stronger, while the sounds falling from her luscious mouth move from moans, but whimpers and pleas.

"Logan, yes, Logan please, Logan, Logan, Logan, yes, yes, so close, yes, Logan-"

There is a knock at the door. The two of them leap apart as if Elsbeth has released a jolt of lightning, the Queen hurriedly rearranging her blankets and Logan wiping his hand on the napkin from her soup.

"C-Come in!" Elsbeth calls.

She sounds flustered, and Logan takes a moment to savour the delicious rosiness of her cheeks before he wipes his expression into a blank mask. The door is opened by one of the servants, a woman either too stupid to notice the charged atmosphere or too discreet to mention it.

"Oh, Your Majesty – I am very glad to find you awake, ma'am," the maid says, bobbing into a curtsey and poorly hiding the fact that she had wanted the Queen to be sleeping perhaps forever. "Was … was the soup to your liking?"

"It was delicious. Thank you …?"

The maid's eyes widen. "M-Maureen, Your Majesty."

"Thank you, Maureen."

In mute astonishment, Maureen seizes the tray from the bedside table and virtually runs from the room. Elsbeth leans back on the pillows again and sighs. "I wonder how long it's been since she was thanked for her pains."

"Too long, no doubt," Logan answers tightly.

"What's the matter?" she asks, reaching out to entwine her fingers with his.

"That was too close."

"Ah." Suddenly, she moves, using his hand to swing herself onto his lap, straddling him, her bare thighs either side of his. "You wish we didn't have to hide."

"Don't you?" he frowns.

"I don't know. We always will have to hide this." Her voice has taken on the husky purr again, and she is slowly, almost imperceptibly rocking her hips. "They'll tell us it's forbidden." She nips along his neck. "That how we feel is wrong." She kisses him, catching his bottom lip between her teeth and making him hiss before licking over the slight wound she has created.

"They'll take you away from me," he whispers, throat tight with the thought.

"They can try," she growls.

She crushes her mouth to his, and from there it is quick. Logan raises his hips quickly, enough for Elsbeth to move his trousers down far enough to expose his throbbing cock. She apparently doesn't seem to need much in the way of foreplay today; she moves slowly, but determinedly as she slides him deep into her. She is not quiet, letting out a cry of raw pleasure loose from her throat when they are completely joined.

Then she bends her head and kisses him hungrily again, bucking her hips. "Gods, Logan, how can this be wrong?"

It might be wrong, and it might be forbidden and disgusting by anyone else's standards – but they both know there is nothing in the world that be more natural, more perfect or right. Nothing could make him feel complete like the feeling of Elsbeth's body against his own. It takes neither of them long to shudder into joint, dark oblivion.


	22. Day 314

**+314**

Elsbeth feels restless now, and wants to raise from her bed. Logan looks inclined to let her, but he says he wants her to see someone first. Ben comes in, ushering in a older man in a scarlet waistcoat that is about to burst at the seams. "Your Majesty, may I present Doctor-"

She bolts upright, and "Doctor? Who said I needed a doctor?"

At the foot of the bed, the dog has also tensed, his ears forward. Logan wonders if he is the only person close enough to hear the incredibly low-pitched growl issuing from the animal. Clearly he's reacting to Elsbeth's sudden anxiety.

"You've been through a hell of a thing, Elsbeth," Ben frowns. "We just thought you'd want a check up, make sure your health is-"

"My health is fine!" she barks.

The doctor now looks bewildered and not a little afraid. Understandable, given the Queen's now-fearsome reputation. "Perhaps it would be better if I left until Her Majesty is better disposed-"

"Get out!"

Ben shoots Logan an utterly baffled look, but Logan can't say he understands any more than the redcoat does. However, his primary concern is how to get his sister to stop hyperventilating. Her eyes are darting all around the room, but keep flickering to the windows and the doors. Her chest heaves with huge gasps of air, and she has gone deathly white. It makes the now-glowing Will markings shine all the brighter, and the bedsheets that her hands are fisted in are beginning to smoulder.

"Elsbeth! Elsbeth, you must calm down!"

"They're going to strap me down and-"

He takes her shoulders and shakes her. Firmly. "No one is going to do anything to you without your consent. No one, ever again! Look at me!" She does, and he holds her gaze. "I would die before I let that happen. Do you believe me?"

She nods, her breathing slowing.

"You are safe. You are home. Milton is dead."

"I'm safe. I'm home. Milton is dead," she whispers. She relaxes, opening her palms. There are blackened hand prints on the sheets, but no actual fire. He fetches her a glass of water, and by the time he hands it to her, she has given in to the dog's nuzzling and comforting licking, and even smiles. She sips at the water. "Thank you."

"Will you tell me?"

"It was part of the torture," she confesses, though why should would feel it needed to be an admission, he's no idea. "Milton was trying to- I think he was trying to make me forget who I was. Each time he came he would drain my essence using the electric chair. The pain was ... I can't describe the pain. As he did it he would call himself a doctor. Insist I was 'confused' and needed 'treatment'."

"Hence your reaction to the doctor."

"Yes. I know that one's not here to hurt me but it's- it's hard to let go of that."

"I can imagine."

"No you can't," she whispers, her eyes fierce again.

He is silent for a moment, until she throws herself against his chest, nuzzling her nose against his throat.

"I'm sorry."

He has never talked about it, never given so much of a hint of what he saw in Aurora's caves. It's not something the two of them need to talk about, since the trauma is merely another indissoluble link between them, another thing they share. She has often wondered though, why he hasn't spoken of what the Crawler did to him, to others. Why he hasn't sought some measure of vindication or forgiveness from the people. For a long time she'd assumed it was just because he was strong enough so that the Darkness hadn't wormed its way into his bones the same way it had hers. She knows better now. She sees the shadows in his eyes, the haunted expression he wears when he is dreaming, the utter terror that passes over his whole body if he's taken by surprise. None of it lasts more than a moment. But it's there. Logan does know what it's like to be taken and held and tortured.

Logan says nothing, his reply to her apology a kiss between her eyebrows.

"Do you think I need a doctor?" she asks in a small voice.

"I think it would be useful for you to see one, yes."

"Useful?"

It was an odd word to choose, but the right one. Logan elaborates. "If you see a doctor, and they declare that you've been suffering from a terrible illness ..."

She catches up. "Then it explains 'my' behaviour when Milton was impersonating me."

"Page doesn't think they'll believe you," he says, bracing himself for the impact of that wound.

Elsbeth's despair at hearing that not even her people are now willing to believe her flashes in her grey eyes only. It is no less sharp for that. Her friends' failures to notice, that had been their failing. That her people did not ask why is a personal failure.

The people of Albion are solid, stolid, stoic and full of common sense. Unwilling to believe in magic, in wraiths or in things too big for them to punch. Never mind the fact that they were invaded not too long ago by the most monstrous thing none of them could imagine. So it's much better to think that their Hero Queen, who had saved them from his tyranny, has been ill and therefore mad, than to think that she might have been swapped with a magical doppelganger.

But Elsbeth doesn't see it like that, which is why she's the Hero and he isn't.

She sighs, but says nothing beyond, "Fine. I'll see him."


	23. Day 317

**+317**

"We can't just force them to disband!"

"Were you not listening to that speech that gobby arsehole was yelling? He's talking about revolution!"

"Not without cause, my lad, not without cause - they don't know what's happened to the Queen, do they?"

"I cannot believe I am saying this, but Major Finn is entirely correct. We cannot allow a few ringleaders to turn dissent into sedition. We have to make arrests."

"You do that and there _will_ be violence. I think this country's had enough of the crown killing its own subjects, don't you?"

"Fair point but we can't just let them call for the end of the monarchy."

"Oh, the monarchy, the monarchy! You know what, we wouldn't be in this situation if there weren't a-"

Elsbeth is seated in her throne, crown on her head, head in her hands. The audience room has only got five people - and a dog - in it but the voices are ringing throughout the space and around her skull. She's second-guessing herself enough, as to whether she should have reduced the number of guards around Bowerstone, or perhaps she should have gradually increased the amount of aid given to shelters, maybe she should have explained why child benefit had been reinstated as swiftly as it had been cancelled.

This morning there has been a rally in Bowerstone Market. Some five thousand people attended. There are calls for a revolution that ends with her head in a basket at the base of a guillotine. At least, she thinks with a sudden burst of laughter, she wouldn't have a headache that way.

The unexpected laughter stops the others' bickering in its tracks. "Elsbeth?" Page asks.

"Hmm? Sorry. Carry on. Just thinking."

"Well can you talk too?" Ben says impatiently.

The Queen looks at Page. "You were going to say if there weren't a monarchy, weren't you?"

"Well ... yes," the other woman shrugs. "I'm sorry, but it's true."

"There's no need to apologise. As it happens, I agree with you," the Queen says.

Everyone stares. "With which bit?"

Elsbeth looks at her friend. "You were right. If there were no Queen, no monarchy, this could never have happened." She stands and walks towards the map table, the only moving figure in a room of stationary people. "In a Republic, no one person rules. Correct?" she asks.

"That's right," Page says.

"The government would be headed by a President, but with appropriate checks and balances to prevent him or her becoming despotic. Correct?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Government for the people by the people, then? Is that what you're thinking, lass?" Sabine seems bemused and wry.

Elsbeth nods firmly. "A clean break. A chance for Albion to chart its own course."

"Then you- You're going to abdicate?" Ben asks, disbelieving.

"No," Logan blurts. "You can't."

Sabine clears his throat more delicately than she thought he could, and motions towards the door. Page grabs Ben's elbow and doesn't give him a choice about leaving the royal siblings alone. In the muffled, dampened atmosphere, she can feel Logan's denial beating against her. He looks utterly aghast.

"Elsbeth, the monarchy is Albion's history - it's part of the very fabric of our nation-"

"Logan, I love you dearly but you do talk the most utter shit."

 _"What?"_

"The monarchy is barely two generations old. Father had no right to the throne when he took it, and he only held it because he was popular and owned most of the kingdom. If he was anything it was a decent businessman. Something he _didn't_ pass down to his son," she adds with a gentle nudge at him.

Logan isn't remotely in the mood for humour. "Without a Hero at the helm, Albion has come to ruin, always, without exception. What would have happened had Jack of Blades been allowed to run amock? Or Lucius built the Spire? What would have happened if _you_ hadn't been there to stop the Darkness?"

"Albion would have fallen. I'm not contesting that."

"Then how can you consider abandoning-"

"Who said anything about abandoning Albion?" she asks, putting a hand on a slightly jutted hip and a cocky smirk on her face, which at any other time she knows would get a similar rise from him.

Logan, however, is not to be teased. Anger flashes onto his face. "Elsbeth! You are taking about uprooting and replacing the entire government of your kingdom and thus far you have failed to tell me why! If you have a reason for this nonsensical plan, I demand to know it!"

She lets loose a sigh and looks away. "Logan, I meant what I said to Page. Had this country had a system of government that depended upon more than one person, Milton never could have succeeded."

"Milton? Is he what this is about, your sudden lack of faith in yourself?"

"No. I believe I could be a Queen good for and to my people. I believe I will only ever have their best interests at heart and I believe that if I am allowed to remain Queen until I am an elderly woman, I would have left the monarchy stronger-"

"Then why-"

"Because it is still an 'if'! There are already those willing to overthrow me, despite being told I have been ill, despite my efforts to save all their lives a year ago. If what I have done does not entitle me to their faith, then it is better I am not here. If they have a government that they themselves elect, then there can be no one to blame. I won't pretend I'm not also motivated by self-preservation," she adds. "Those months in the Pit – I felt under threat all the time."

Logan reaches for her. "Elsbeth, I know-"

She shrugs from his grasp. "No, Logan, you don't. I still feel like that. As long as I am Queen, I will always feel like that."

"We can put in added security measures."

"More guards. Increase the powers of the Crown so that potentially seditious correspondence can be opened and inspected? Make sure that anyone who might be conspiring against me can be imprisoned?"

"Yes! There are all sorts of measures we could-"

"Logan, everything I've just said is what Milton has done."

He stops.

She smiles sadly. "I love you. And I know you are thinking only of my safety. But I have to think of _their_ safety. Having a Queen is putting everyone, including myself, at risk. I have to go."


	24. Day 343

**+343**

The Queen has signed so many bits of paper today that her hand is beginning to cramp and her back aches from being hunched over her desk. Still, there are more waiting. Her signature is needed for everything: to give royal charter to new ministries, to authorise the release of confidential papers to would-be politicians, to fund the building of the houses of parliament.

The doors to her study open; Logan and the dog come in, her collie running through to greet her. The fur on his legs is wet and muddy; he's evidently been having the time of his life. Logan, too, has clearly come straight from the outside. He has shed his coat and his shirt collar is slightly open. Elsbeth knows from experience that it would take a mere flick to open it further. And then she'd run her mouth all the way down to his- Her mouth is watering now.

Logan, however, is looking unhappy at finding her at her desk. "You said you'd be taking the day off."

"I intended to, but there's so much to get through."

"So I see. Do you really think working yourself to the bone will get through them faster?"

"I have to get through them faster!"

"Why?" he fires back.

Elsbeth sighs and offers a tight smile to her secretary. "Would you mind leaving us, please?"

Lynda bows and leaves them to it. "Your Majesty, Your Highness."

Logan barely waits for the doors to be closed before he lays into her with all the indignation of a good older brother. "Why did you lie to me?"

"As I said, I didn't mean to. But if we want to get this done by the Solstice then-"

"The Solstice?" he is bewildered now. "Who on earth has said anything about the Solstice? We were aiming for the equinox - it cannot just be pushed forwards three months-"

"It has to be."

"Why?"

"Because I can't still be in the public eye by then, I can't still be Queen!"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm-" The fact that both their voices have risen stabs at her, and she drops to a whisper now for this most important piece of news. "Because I'm pregnant."

Logan is struck mute.


	25. Day 363

**+362**

There is not a instant of hesitation in the Queen when she signs her name at the bottom of the abdication order. And then, just like that, she's Queen no longer.

Elsbeth leaves Bowerstone that afternoon.


	26. Day 365

**+365**

"So ... what do you think?"

"Of the decor?" Elsbeth asks sleepily, raising her head from where it is pillowed on Logan's chest. "It's fine. I think we'll have to move the suit of armour though. I don't really fancy that leaning over me in the night."

That's a good point. He didn't mean the decor though. He means this, this little cottage just outside Brightwall, their _home_. He means of the life they're about to start. The life they have _already_ started, stirring in Elsbeth's belly. He strokes over her abdomen now, over the roundness that now no longer needs to be hidden. Lying like this, with a fresh dew on her skin from their lovemaking, she glows in the afternoon sunlight. They had just got away with it, managing to hide her condition from all but the servants of Elsbeth's bedchamber, and they had been well-compensated for their silence. Now that there is no longer any need for concealment, the bump seems to have expanded, and Elsbeth truly glows. Against his hand, there is a sudden series of thumps.

Elsbeth smiles contentedly. "The baby likes it too."

It is not quite the first time Logan has felt their child kick, but the sensation is new enough that it still thrills and mystifies him. He has no idea how Elsbeth has managed to create the miracle of life, much less really conceive of his own role in it. He rubs his palm over her skin. "I'm glad." They lie there in silence a little while, before Logan thinks to ask. "So what will be your next quest, Hero?"

She laughs. Laughs because he doesn't even need to question that there will be a new adventure, knows that there was never going to be a life of quiet retirement after she relinquished her throne. Then she stretches and reaches up to smooth her fingers through his hair.

"Well, I hear there's someone in Brightwall having problems with abusive gnomes."


End file.
